


everybody needs someone to adore

by pocky_slash



Series: shore verse [2]
Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Canon Disabled Character, Developing Relationship, Domestic, Established Relationship, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 18:22:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3946993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/pseuds/pocky_slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles is still struggling with his paralysis and finishing his doctorate, Erik is still putting his life back together after his divorce and the birth of his children, but somehow they're tripping into the greatest thing that ever happened to either of them.</p><p>(Ficlets from the same universe as <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/903450">we'll all be gone for the summer</a>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. useless, but beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> Ficlets from the shoreverse! Charles and Erik in the years before they're long-married and settled down and taking their daughter and Erik's kids on a beach vacation. How they get there, if you will.
> 
> Thanks, always, to **pearl_o** , who loves this verse as much as I do ♥
> 
> Chapter one: Erik is alone in Charles' apartment and is shocked by how clearly he can suddenly see their future.

It hits Erik from nowhere on a quiet evening when he's alone in Charles' apartment.

There's nothing particularly noteworthy about the day. Charles called about fifteen minutes previous with the usual barrage of apologies for getting caught up in his work and a promise to pick up dinner on the way home. Erik isn't actually annoyed--Charles' propensity for getting caught up in his work is already a staple of their relationship. He finds it endearing, at least for the moment.

It does mean that Erik is alone in Charles' apartment though, wandering through it with a sharper eye than he has since the first time he was here.

It was months ago, now. It surprises him to realize that, to stack all the days together to get the whole scope of it. He met Charles on one of the hottest days in August and now it's nearly Thanksgiving. It feels like the blink of an eye. It feels like it would take ten, twenty, two hundred times this stretch of days for Erik to get sick of Charles.

He's used to Charles' apartment now, a generic student townhouse on the more upscale end of the student housing in the neighborhood. Charles has the place to himself, though, and while Erik's never examined that too closely, always thought of it as a boon, for the first time he pauses and realizes the reason. Charles can afford it. Charles doesn't need a roommate to make rent, even living on his graduate stipend.

Because most graduate students don't live like this, Erik knows. Sure, for the most part Charles' apartment is the same as any other, but there's just enough class to speak of money. The art on the wall is framed and nicer than the usual torn posters and photographs he remembers from college. Charles has knick-knacks on his bookshelves, tiny glass statues and wire sculptures of DNA helixes. They're not quite bookends, more like decorations--useless, but beautiful. Erik's going to have to move them a few shelves higher up before he brings the kids over here.

His hand is halfway outstretched towards one of the metal pieces when he processes that thought fully. He freezes.

Down the hall, he hears keys in the door.

"I'm home!" Charles calls out. "I just brought pizza because I know I'm already late and--" Erik can feel Charles' wheelchair moving closer, and then feel it stop. He looks up at Charles in the doorway to the living room. Charles smiles at him peculiarly.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"Uh," Erik says. He thinks he should lie, or shrug it off. It's been four months. Less than four months. They haven't talked about this long term and Erik knows how he gets--he knows he clings to the familiar without examining it, that he's so terrified of change that he doesn't allow himself to see other possibilities, that he moves too fast as a coping mechanism. That's how he got into trouble with Magda, after all--marrying his best friend out of fear of losing her when they were too young to know any better.

Except, well--marrying Magda may have been rash, but it wasn't a mistake, not really. It brought him his babies, of course, but more than that. He loved her. He loves her. He'll always love her. He just doesn't love her the way he needed to love her to be married to her.

He doesn't love her the way he thinks he loves Charles.

Charles is still watching him, expression mild, eyes sharp. Erik swallows.

"I'm...figuring out how to baby-proof your apartment," Erik says slowly.

"Oh," Charles says after a moment. He smiles, his fingers curling around the pizza box on his lap. "Good."

"Not...right now," Erik says. He lowers his hand. "But...someday it will be important. Soon, maybe."

_Someday_. There's a future, a future here with Charles, a future where Erik is going to introduce Charles to his babies. This thing between them, this beautiful thing, Erik sees it rolling onwards and onwards. He knows it's too soon to talk about it that way. He knows it's too soon to make those plans. But he's making one of them anyway, or at least making his intentions known. He's putting one tiny thing out there to see how Charles reacts, and so far, so good.

"It will be very important," Charles agrees. Something about his smile is making Erik dizzy with relief. "And I'm--I'm so pleased to hear that you think so."

"Good," Erik says, because he doesn't know how to say anything else. Because he knows it's too early to say what he really wants to say. "So...pizza?"

Charles laughs.

"Pizza," he agrees.

Soon. Soon, he'll set the whole thing up with Magda. He'll tell her more about Charles, ask for her permission. He'll plan the whole thing out so it will go off without a hitch.

For now, there's pizza and the way Charles is looking at him and the knowledge that they have all the time they need to figure these things out. There's no need to rush.


	2. a door key

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Two: Charles leaves Erik a set of keys. Erik is very confused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes places within the first six months of Charles and Erik's relationship. The twins have just turned three.

"I've left some things for you on the counter!" Charles calls out from the bathroom Friday morning. Erik shoves the last of his eggs and toast into his mouth and makes his way over to the low desk counter in the kitchen. On top is Erik's lunchbox, the book Charles checked out from the university library for him, and a keyring with three keys on it. "I'll be late tonight--I'll try to make it in before you go to bed, and if not, you can always stop by after you get back from Magda's tomorrow?"

Frowning at the keys, Erik shoves them in his pocket and then jogs down the hall to lean against the wall next to the bathroom.

"What are the keys for?" he asks.

"Front door, patio door, and the basement," Charles says. "Don't be late!"

"I won't," Erik says. "I'm leaving now. I love you."

It's strange to say it out loud, in a way. He fell for Charles nearly immediately, the nervous butterflies of attraction in his stomach turning into genuine affection within weeks, days. He has no doubt that what he feels for Charles is love, frightening and new and overwhelming if he thinks about it too long. But at the same time, it feels so strange to be saying it to someone who isn't Magda, even years after their divorce. He imagined he'd never say it to anyone else again once they were married, and even though age and distance have added some insight into different kinds of love and different kinds of relationships, it still feels bizarre to make that declaration.

"Love you too," Charles calls back. "You'll still be home before six, right?"

"Yeah," Erik says. He wants to ask more about the keys, but he really will be late if he doesn't leave now. "I'll see you tonight, maybe."

"Hopefully," Charles calls out. He projects something not unlike a kiss. Erik respects that Charles' morning routine is a little more complicated than most, but part of Erik still wishes he could see him for just a moment before he leaves.

He's lucky Charles loves him back, because he's pretty fucking pathetic.

Erik thinks about the keys some more as he drives into work. The new metal in his pocket is jarring and lingers on the edge of his mind.

He and Charles aren't living together. Not really. Not entirely. Erik still has his own place, and sure, they've been talking a lot about Charles meeting his kids and Magda and Erik is definitely in this for the longterm, but...they're not living together. Erik doesn't need keys to Charles' apartment, even though he spends all his time there. He doesn't need keys at all, for anywhere, actually, but Charles' apartment especially. He has permission from Charles to come in whenever he'd like and he occasionally makes use of it. It's convenient, when Charles asks him over or is running late, for Erik to be able to let himself in. But he doesn't need keys for it. And he doesn't know why Charles is bothering to give them to him.

He's probably thinking about this more than he needs to.

At work, he settles into his desk and opens his email. There's an Outlook alert reminding him of the twins' tumbling class tomorrow and another reminding him of the appointment Charles made with the plumber for 6pm tonight. He mutes them both, weeds through his email for anything important, and then picks up his desk phone and dials Magda.

"I have to leave for class in like, five minutes, so make this quick," she says when she picks up.

"I have a question," he says. Not for the first time he wishes he had friends beyond his ex-wife. "Feel free to invoke divorce rule three."

"Divorce rule three?" she says. "I thought you and Charles were pretty exclusive at this point? Did something happen?"

"No, the date one is divorce rule two," Erik says. "Three is talking about relationships."

"Right, right," Magda says. "Rule three."

"Come on, you wrote half of these," Erik says.

"Well, I don't have the numbers memorized," she says. "Anyway, time's wasting. Divorce Rule Three, I can cut you off if I don't want to hear you talking about your new relationship. What's up?"

"I'm not sure," Erik admits. "Charles gave me a set of keys to his place today."

"Really?" Magda asks.

"Yeah," Erik says. "And...we're not moving in together. We haven't talked about that. I don't _live there_ and I can and have used my powers to get in and out as necessary and...what does this mean?"

"Are you sure you're not moving in there?" Magda asks. "You're there an awful lot more than you're at your place, according to my caller ID."

"It's just...nicer," Erik say weakly. "But even if I am, you don't just...ask someone to move in by giving them keys. Do you?"

"You do know that the sum total of my adult relationship knowledge is our failed marriage, right?" Magda asks. Erik winces.

"I know but...you have friends," he says. "They have relationships. You see things. I have you, two toddlers, and the boyfriend who left me keys this morning."

"He just left them?" Magda asks. He can hear something dragging across the kitchen floor--probably a chair. He closes his eyes for a moment and can see it all perfectly, Magda in her kitchen on the wall phone, deciding this conversation is worth sitting down for after all. He understands how Magda's mind works. Maybe one day he'll be at that point with Charles, but he only began to understand Magda after twenty-odd years of being around her constantly. Twenty years with Charles would be...a very long time. He's not ruling it out, necessarily, not at all, but they've only been dating a few months.

"There was a pile of things on the counter in the kitchen that he left there while I was in the shower," Erik says. "He packed my lunch for me and he took a book out of the library for me. It was the lunchbox, the book, and the keys."

"He packs your lunch?"

"I cook most nights, so he packs leftovers for our lunches most mornings," Erik says.

"That is incredibly nerdy and incredibly cute," Magda says, but he can tell she's not entirely comfortable with the swerve into his domestic life with someone else, even if she was the one who brought it up. He refocuses.

"He just left them there, and I took them, and when I said, 'What are the keys for?' he told me the front door, the patio, and the basement. Which is, I assume, accurate, but I meant why did he give them to me, not what did they open. And then I had to leave and we didn't really get a chance to talk and--am I just supposed to know?"

Magda hums on the other end of the phone line.

"Well, lots of people give keys to their boyfriends even when they're not living together. Kind of a 'make yourself at home whenever you feel like it' thing," she says. "He's probably just...making sure you know you're welcome."

"But I don't need keys," Erik says.

"It's a symbolic thing," Magda says. "It's his way of saying 'I know you COULD get in at any time but I also know your moral code keeps you from just bursting in places so this is me officially saying that you are welcome to come in whenever you want.'"

"Really?" Erik asks.

"Oh, for god's sake Erik, I have no idea," Magda says. "I've never met him. I'm guessing, here. You would know better than I would."

Erik sighs and rubs his face.

"You're right," he says. "Of course you're right. I have no fucking idea what I'm doing."

"Then talk to him about it, not me," Magda says. "Now I'm officially invoking rule three because I'm going to be late to class if I don't leave now."

"Yeah, okay, I'll see you tomorrow," Erik says.

"Bye!"

Erik hangs the phone up and pulls the keys out of his pocket, staring down at them again. Looking more closely, he can see that they're labeled--F, P, B. Was Charles trying to send some kind of message? Maybe it's actually the opposite of Magda's guess--maybe Charles is annoyed at how frequently Erik just lets himself in and the keys are some kind of gentle reminder that he hasn't had permission. Except...giving the keys would mean giving permission, right?

Fuck, Charles is usually better at saying what he means than this. Erik is the one who occasionally finds himself fumbling to express himself and what he needs. It was so easy with Magda--she knew him so well that he didn't have to actually ask most of the time. She could figure out what he wanted and do it or say it or get it. And, okay, sometimes that backfired into weird passive-aggressive arguments and there were definitely times where he skimped on talking about things they really should have talked about because he didn't want to and it was easier to pretend nothing was wrong. Still. This is terrible.

Not much later, some actual work rolls his way. He puts the keys back into his pocket and forgets about them. He composes a million emails to Charles in his head and is very close to reaching out to poke him telepathically. He imagines a dozen different conversations that they might have once Charles gets home tonight, if he even manages to get home before Erik goes to bed.

It's not his most productive day at work.

He gives up at quarter to five and slips out fifteen minutes early. Of course, getting away from his desk doesn't help matters much. Charles is hosting a lecture tonight and won't be home until late. He could always go by the university but...that seems creepy. Whatever this means, whatever the keys signify, it can wait. Can't it?

He picks up take-out on the way to Charles' apartment and installs himself in front of the television with his Chinese food. He can barely concentrate, so he turns it off and makes himself stop freaking out and analyze why he's upset. His therapist used to love this method of reasoning and it drove Erik crazy as a teenager, but he's willing to give anything a shot.

Charles gave him keys. Charles seemed utterly blase about having given him keys. Charles did not alter his morning routine in the slightest, despite the addition of keys--he still packed Erik's lunch and made the coffee while Erik was in the shower, then kissed Erik good morning and slipped into the bathroom while Erik got ready for work. He told Erik he loved him before Erik left for work. He encouraged Erik to come over this weekend.

To start with, Charles obviously isn't breaking up with him, which is a relief. You don't give someone keys to your apartment if you're breaking up with them. He knows this, but following it through logically makes him feel much better. That leaves a few options--like Magda said, it could be a symbolic gesture. Charles wants Erik to know he can come and go as he pleases. That...doesn't really change anything. Erik already comes and goes as he pleases. It could be a hint--Charles wants keys to Erik's apartment. Which Erik is happy to give, if that's what Charles wants, but they only very rarely go over there, so it's not like Charles is missing out. Charles' apartment has all of the various things he needs to live his life more effortlessly, and though Erik's been working on making his own place more wheelchair friendly, Charles' apartment is also closer to to their jobs and larger and nicer in general.

None of this hinting seems very much like Charles, though. Charles won't even let them go to bed angry--he hates sleeping alone and makes them talk out any disagreements before bed, at least enough so they can get through the night. Charles talks everything to death, actually. Every feeling, every decision. Erik wonders sometimes if it's not a strange side-effect of the telepathy, or rather, of society's rules for telepathy. He wonders if Charles doesn't talk every feeling to death just to prove that he's not taking any telepathic shortcuts.

Whatever the reason, Charles doesn't make games of things like this. If Charles wanted to say any of those things, he would say them. He wouldn't make Erik play this elaborate guessing game.

Except that still doesn't explain the damn keys.

He's mostly done with his take-out when the doorbell buzzes. It's 6:18, which is later than the plumber was expected, but earlier than Erik assumed he'd actually show up. Erik gets up from the couch to let him in.

"Mr. Xavier?" the plumber asks.

"He's out," Erik says. "But he left me to show you around. You're going to need basement access, right?"

"Yup," the plumber says. "And to get out to the water hook-up outside. Probably on the patio, if the rest of the units are anything to go by."

"Whatever you need," Erik says. He walks the plumber through the apartment and points out the patio door before unlocking and pulling open the door to the basement.

"Great," the plumber says. "Like I told Mr. Xavier on the phone, it's gonna be a two, three day job to get everything fixed and hooked up the way the landlord wants. He said he was gonna leave me a set of keys?"

Erik freezes.

Distantly, vaguely, buried under the weight of sleep and two dozen more important things, Erik unearths a memory of Monday night. Erik was in bed after sex, mostly asleep while Charles checked his email at the desk. Charles asked if Erik would be home on Friday to let the plumber in and Erik said yes, then he started talking about water pressure and toilet use and how long it would take and maybe, possibly, in the middle of all that, he mentioned he was having a set of keys made so the plumber could get in and out.

Maybe. Possibly. Erik's mind was elsewhere.

"He did," Erik croaks. He fishes them out of his pocket and hands them over, hoping that the plumber is paying no heed to the fact that Erik's face is probably as bright red as it feels.

He is an _idiot_.

"Front, patio, basement," Erik says. "They're, uh, labeled."

"Great," the plumber says. "Thanks. I'll leave you to it."

Erik walks back over to the couch and collapses on top of it, covering his face with his hands.

The first thing he decides is to stop on the hardware store on the way to Magda's tomorrow and get a second set of keys to his apartment. They may go over there rarely, but it's probably the right thing to do anyway. Who knows when Charles is going to need to get inside for some bizarre reason.

The second thing he decides is that Charles can never, ever know about this.


	3. a surprise celebration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Three: Erik tells the twins about some big changes in store for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Charles and Erik have been together about three years. The twins are five.

Erik waits until the waitress has placed three sundaes on the table--fudge, strawberry, and caramel--and clears his throat. He's been trying to figure out the best way to put this all through dinner and he's not sure he's nailed it yet, but he's running out of time.

"Hey," he says once Wanda and Pietro are focused on their ice cream. "So, I wanted to talk to you guys about something."

Both of them look up at him, but don't put down their spoons.

"Remember...remember a couple months ago when Bubbe and Zayde were staying with you and Charles and I came over for dinner?"

"Yeeeessss," Wanda says. "Bubbe asked a lot of questions."

"She did," Erik says. He rubs the back of his neck. That was a long night. A very, very long night with his former in-laws who practically raised him and his new boyfriend. "Do you remember when you were talking to Charles and you asked him if we were going to get married?"

Wanda nods.

"He said that sometimes boys can't marry boys and girls can't marry girls, even if they want to," she says.

"Right," Erik says. "And he was right--Charles and I can't really get married the way Mommy and I were married--"

"That's dumb," Pietro interjects. Then, after another spoonful of ice cream, adds, "But getting married is dumb too. There's too much kissing."

"Just you wait, kid," Erik says. "But you're right, it is dumb, but the people in charge decided that's the way it has to be right now. But, even though we can't get married there's this thing--we can...uh...."

He wishes he and Charles had thought about this for more than two seconds before Wanda started peppering them with questions at that dinner a couple months ago. It would be much easier if they could just call it a fucking wedding.

He's blaming all of this on the bigots in Albany and Washington.

"We can't get married for real, but there's another thing we can do," Erik says. "It's kind of like being married."

There are two pair of confused eyes peering up at him over ice cream sundaes. Okay. He has to break it down.

"Okay," he says. "So, when people get married, there's a lot of boring grown-up reasons for it."

"You get married when you love someone," Wanda tells him, gesturing with her spoon.

"You do," he allows. "And getting married kind of...rewards you for loving someone. You get all sorts of boring grown-up prizes for getting married. Like, remember when Mommy got a new job and you had to change dentists?"

"Dr. Shah has better stickers than Dr. Barry did anyway," Pietro says.

"Well, that's because you get your doctors through your work, and when you're married, you can choose from the same doctors as the person you're married to. And all of your stuff--your money and your house and all your things, they become shared with the other person.You also get..." There's no way to explain tax laws. "Other stuff. Like, if someone gets hurt, you can go visit them in the hospital. And lots of other things. But the point is, boys can't marry other boys, but they can do this other thing that's _like_ marriage so they can have the same doctors and share their stuff and visit each other at the hospital and things like that."

Wanda and Pietro don't say anything for a moment. Wanda eats the cherry off her sundae.

"So, if it's just like being married, why can't you just get married?" she finally asks.

"I don't know, baby," he says. He runs a hand through his hair. "There are some people out there who really don't want boys to marry boys and girls to marry girls, so they do things like this to try and stop it."

"That's dumb," Pietro says again. 

"It is," Erik agrees again. 

"So does that mean you and Charles are going to get...the other thing like getting married?" Wanda asks. Her sundae is seemingly forgotten, eyes wide. 

"We are," Erik says. He adds, quickly, "Nothing will change! You guys will still live with Mommy and I'll still see you every single weekend and Charles and I will still live together and I'll still come to see your recitals and games and art shows, just like I do now. Charles and I will probably move to a new apartment or maybe a house, but we won't move far."

"I like Charles' apartment," Pietro says. "It's nicer than yours."

"I like it too," Erik says. "But Charles lives there because he's a student at the university and in May he's going to graduate, so he needs to move out."

"But you're going to get married," Wanda says again. Then, "I mean, the other married thing?" Her ice cream is starting to melt. Erik wonders if maybe he shouldn't have waited until the car ride back home, or taken Charles up on his offer to join them for dinner. He always thought Wanda _liked_ Charles. Both of the kids seem to like him, actually, which isn't surprising given how likeable Charles is. Wanda was the one who asked them if they were going to get married in the first place, all those weeks ago, and he thought she'd be...excited. Happy.

He licks his lips and hesitates. He loves Charles. It makes sense that they do this, especially given that Charles isn't exactly sure yet what he's going to be doing after he graduates and he'll still need health insurance which, even with a literal billion dollars to his name, is going to be difficult to secure given his various medical conditions. Plus, they're going to want kids of their own--he can't call the partnership off just because Wanda is upset.

"Yes," he says. "It's called a 'domestic partnership' and we're going to get it." He tries not to seem too nervous as he waits for her response. Her expression is grave.

"Are there flower girls in domestic partnerships?" she asks.

He exhales all at once.

"Yes," he tells her. "You can be the flower girl."

"Yay!" she cheers. "Hooray! Can my dress be pink? Will Mommy be there? Will _Moira_ be there? Will there be cake?"

"Finish your ice cream, guys," Erik says. "Then we'll go home and see Charles and we can all talk about it together, okay?"

"Okay!" they chorus, and attack their sundaes again. Erik's own caramel chocolate concoction is now mostly melted. He picks the cherry off the top and gives Charles a mental tap.

_You were right, they're fine,_ he says. 

There's a burst of affection and recognition, as well as the slightly distant fog that means Charles is doing twenty other things while having this conversation.

_I told you they would be._

_Yeah,_ Erik responds, _but you weren't the one who had to sit here and explain spousal benefits to a couple five year olds._

_Well, you're still their father. I'm legally nothing to them until we sign the papers. It's your duty._

_Excuses, excuses._ Erik glances over at Wanda, who is nudging his sundae closer to him.

"Daddy, you need to finish your ice cream so we can go home and see Charles!" she says.

"You're right," Erik says. "You're pretty excited to see him, huh?"

" _Yes_ ," Wanda says impatiently. "Hurry _up_."

Erik can't help but smile.

_We'll be home soon. Thanks._

_For what?_ Charles replies as Erik picks up his spoon. He thinks about it for a moment.

_For being you,_ he responds.

"Daddy!" Wanda says. "Ice cream!"

"Okay, okay," Erik says, and digs into his ice cream soup with gusto.


End file.
